U.S. Women were Multi-sport Athletes before Focusing on Soccer

VANCOUVER – Abby Wambach is the greatest header of a ball in women’s soccer history, a fact she credits to … basketball?

The United States forward is gearing up for the last and most important game of her World Cup career, the one she hopes will plug the only remaining gap on her glowing resumè.

Yet Wambach believes that the success of her time in soccer, the end of which feels that much closer as the team prepares to face Japan in Sunday’s final, would not have been possible without her exploits on the hardwood in her youth.

“Playing basketball had a significant impact on the way I play the game of soccer,” Wambach said. “I am a taller player in soccer, in basketball I was a power forward and I would go up and rebound the ball. So learning the timing of your jump, learning the trajectory of the ball coming off the rim, all those things play a massive role.”

The rest of this article talks about the way other members on the soccer team used other sports to develop their soccer skills. Playing other sports can help develop and exercise different parts of your body that you may not be able to do playing the same sport. The article also talked about how it can help with burn out in your main sport. For the entire article click the link at the top of the page.